Participants load a stretcher into an ambulance during a training course to instruct NGO workers and doctors on how to deal with the Ebola virus in Brussels on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)

(Newser)
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Ebola cases in West Africa could multiply sixfold, affecting up to 20,000 as the virus "continues to accelerate," the World Health Organization said today, per Reuters. Some 1,552 people have now died out of the 3,069 cases reported—though the actual number of cases could be four times that amount, the AP reports. "More than 40% of the total number of cases have occurred within the past 21 days," the UN health agency said, noting an "unprecedented" number of health workers have been hit. The latest figures do not include cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a different strain of Ebola is wreaking havoc.

Though the majority of cases in the outbreak are in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the BBC reports Nigeria has seen its sixth Ebola death, and the first outside the city of Lagos, in the oil hub of Port Harcourt. To help combat the spread, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline notes it is working with the National Institutes of Health on a vaccine to treat Ebola and will begin human trials on healthy volunteers in the coming weeks. If effective, the company will provide 10,000 doses to WHO workers, Sky News reports. Meanwhile, the WHO has revealed a new plan to tackle the virus, which includes focusing on "stopping transmission in capital cities and major ports."